Portrait Bust of a Girl

This portrait bust depicts a young child, perhaps three or four years old, with soft, fleshy cheeks and delicate features. The neck is slight, the skull relatively large and round, with closely cropped hair indicated by fine incisions. Although this hairstyle may appear masculine today, the child wears a high-belted <em>chiton</em>, a long garment usually worn by women and girls. Together with the rope running diagonally across the chest, this suggests a female funerary portrait, perhaps showing the deceased in the guise of the huntress Diana.